Just remember that this is the culture that all of our favorite idol singers come out of.

I thought this worker's response was interesting:

Ms. Nagashima’s protégé, Mika Otani, trained six months for the competition by writing out sample answers and practicing in front of a mirror to make sure she was properly opening up her larynx and articulating. But Ms. Otani, 26, does not plan to simply follow tradition. She considers herself a modern woman and shuns the high-pitched voice. As more women have taken on professional positions in recent years, she said, there has been a backlash against overly squeaky voices.

“I work at a financial institution, so I don’t want to sound like a cartoon character,” Ms. Otani said before the competition.

Wow, I did not know about all that stuff with Okinawa. I remember one of my history teachers in high school saying essentially that the purpose of using the atomic bombs was to make Japan surrender because otherwise every Japanese man, woman, and child would have died/been killed, but I never fully understood where that belief came from.

Wow, I did not know about all that stuff with Okinawa. I remember one of my history teachers in high school saying essentially that the purpose of using the atomic bombs was to make Japan surrender because otherwise every Japanese man, woman, and child would have died/been killed, but I never fully understood where that belief came from.

There's a big dispute between Okinawa and Honshu that's been going on for quite some time.

A lot of scientists, writers or famous people from Okinawa are highly critical of some of the polticial stuff Tokyo orders. Rightfully so, imo.

The last Japanese soldier to surrender after WWII just died at the age of 91. He hid out on an island in the Philippines until 1974--29 years after the end of the war. They treated him like a hero when he got back to Japan and not like the big schmuck he actually was. Three other men who hid with him died during those 29 years--I would argue that he was responsible for their deaths. They say he and his men killed 30 Filipinos in the course of those years. That's 30 acts of murder since the war was over. Yet the Filipino ruler at the time, Ferdinand Marcos--another big schmuck--pardoned him.

Well considering he believed he was still at war, it would be rather odd and kind of douche-y for President Marcos to not pardon him. Plus he gave $10,000 to a school in Lubang, which he wouldn't have been able to do had he been arrested, instead it would have cost the Philippines who knows how much to try him and who knows how much to house/feed him as a prisoner if he was convicted. Were the forensics at that time good enough that it could have even been proven that his gun was used in any of the deaths?

Only two of the other three men died during that time, the other one surrendered.

Well considering he believed he was still at war, it would be rather odd and kind of douche-y for President Marcos to not pardon him. Plus he gave $10,000 to a school in Lubang, which he wouldn't have been able to do had he been arrested, instead it would have cost the Philippines who knows how much to try him and who knows how much to house/feed him as a prisoner if he was convicted. Were the forensics at that time good enough that it could have even been proven that his gun was used in any of the deaths?

Only two of the other three men died during that time, the other one surrendered.

There's a lot of discussion about Japan's need to show remorse for its wartime aggression and the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army in China and other Asian countries. China routinely gets inflamed when a high-level political figure visits Yasukuni Shrine, for instance, and rightfully so.

But where are the calls for China to own up to the atrocities and massacres committed on its own people during the past 65 years after the Communist takeover? Well, a Chinese political scientist named Xiao Han addresses just that subject in an Op-Ed piece called "Confessions of the Cultural Revolution" in today's New York Times:

The Cultural Revolution wreaked devastation on the lives of millions of Chinese people. Mao, who unleashed the movement by urging young people to rise up against their parents and teachers, was attempting to regain prominence after years of failed policies by purging the Communist Party of “capitalists.” For 10 years, the nation was reduced to a state of barbarism.

Because Mao has continued to be revered by China’s leaders since his death in 1976, genuine public reflection on the lessons of this disastrous time has been impossible. Attempts by intellectuals to publicly address the Cultural Revolution have been suppressed; only a smattering of research by state-funded scholars has seen the light of day. The result has been a gradual receding of memory. The economic surge of the past 30 years has even led some deluded souls to look back on the period with nostalgia. But given the authoritarian nature of today’s leadership, many people fear the prospect of a return of the terror that marked the Cultural Revolution.

The truth is that we should not limit public reflection to the Cultural Revolution alone. China’s history has been marked by an endless series of massacres and government-led persecutions — from the Great Famine right through to the more recent “hard-strike” anti-crime campaigns, the Tiananmen Square massacre and the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, to name just a few.

But a public accounting of our tragedies will not come anytime soon. It is only because of the massive involvement of ordinary people in the Cultural Revolution that official suppression has failed to prevent some participants from spontaneously offering apologies.

When we talk about a good Chinatown, we point to certain signs: live fish for sale, dragon eyes in sidewalk produce displays, smokers, crowds.

I read it and immediately visualized "real" dragon eyes sprinkled throughout the produce, i.e. eyes that once belonged to, y'know, dragons!

Then I read this part:

The dragon eye — longan in Cantonese — is a strange fruit, a sweet, subtly fragrant exotic with coarse, sandpapery skin. Shaped like, well, an eyeball, it slips out of its brown covering to reveal translucent white flesh, with a hard mahogany seed inside. You have to know how to eat it, by cracking the whole thing open like a peanut. Chinese people are crazy for longan.

And I realized that when I read that first line, I had actually accepted the existence of real dragon eyes.

I must be watching too much anime. (Hey, I did see four episodes of "X: The TV Series" yesterday--and there are dragons in it.)

I don't know about France, but it's known that German soldiers raped women.

It's shit that happens in every war.

I know there was raping, I guess I should have been more specific. I meant more of forced prostitution, though I did find that Germany did both in concentration camps and of the military variety (some forced, some not), and that there was apparently mass raping of German females by Russians/Soviets. Learn something new everyday.

Every war has rape. Every military occupation also leads to the huge surge of prostitution camps around the bases.

A key difference is when rape becomes a systematic part of official military strategy or policy. This is what happened in the Bosnian War in the 90s or Japan in the 30s/40s.

The other difference is when rape denial/white washing is read as a general tendency on behalf of the Japanese government who has often downplayed wartime responsibility. The larger narrative in Japan is that they are the greatest VICTIMS of WW2 because of the atomic bomb. There is very little consciousness of Japan's behavior as an imperial power. This is all exacerbated by still virulent racism and rising nationalism against China and Korea, which is in an endless feedback loop of Chinese and Korean racism and nationalism right back. East Asia is such a cluster fuck of hate, it really bums me out.

Regardless, this is controversial (but yet not surprising) because NHK is supposed to be apolitical...yet everyone knows they are a conservative mouthpiece for the govt so, whatever.

The final point I'd like to make is that, rape is always bad so this seems like an absurd statement to make. Are some wartime rapes "less bad" than others, just because rape happens so often? Really?

The final point I'd like to make is that, rape is always bad so this seems like an absurd statement to make. Are some wartime rapes "less bad" than others, just because rape happens so often? Really?

Not bad or worse, but as you've said it yourself, in case of rape, just as with every depravation, the circumstances should also be factored into the judgement (e.g. systematic and being at least somewhat institutionalized). This does not mean one rape case is worse than another one, but that the culprit has to be judged differently. Again, this goes for everything, I'm no singling out rapeing.

Somehow I don't think any of this would be happening if Tsunku were Prime Minister.

That is exactly what drew me into H!P J-pop in the beginning.

Members of my family fought in the Pacific Theater in WW2 and I studied up on the war to learn more about the stories they talked about. In Japan's case of rape in Korea and China it was institutionalized. Rape was used as a military tactic to terrorize the local population into submission.

I was astounded by Tsunku's attempt to cross cultural lines with music, dance and fashion. His appeals for peace during the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the whole Middle East cluster fuck are to be commended.

I found intelligent life in Congress: "“There are always unfortunate statements and unfortunate comments even among the best of friends, and this is something that is going to have to be worked out and gotten over with,” said Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin"

But seriously, they (Obama and Abe and their respective administrations) are all acting like five year olds. I feel like China and South Korea need to stop complaining about Yasukuni Shrine and start make passive aggressive comments i.e. "We would have gotten Fukushima cleaned up by now.", because one: it's funnier, and two: I feel as though Abe's only visiting it and such to appease the people who don't like that he's trying to move forward with the U.S. base on Okinawa.

I found intelligent life in Congress: "“There are always unfortunate statements and unfortunate comments even among the best of friends, and this is something that is going to have to be worked out and gotten over with,” said Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin"

But seriously, they (Obama and Abe and their respective administrations) are all acting like five year olds. I feel like China and South Korea need to stop complaining about Yasukuni Shrine and start make passive aggressive comments i.e. "We would have gotten Fukushima cleaned up by now.", because one: it's funnier, and two: I feel as though Abe's only visiting it and such to appease the people who don't like that he's trying to move forward with the U.S. base on Okinawa.

Tsunku's appeals for peace are in his songs. Aruiteru is the most dramatic, imo. "Earnestly praying for peace."

The perpetual use of the Peace sign.

EDIT: At first I was for the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq. Now I consider them among some of the gravest mistakes our nation has ever made.

It kinda went under the radar, but yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the Touhoku Earthquake. According to the latest official report published yesterday, 2633 people are still considered missing, with 6148 injured and 15884 deaths.

Something I didn't realize before is that there are still major aftershocks of this earthquake. I only learned that because me and Berry actually experienced one, coincidentally on the first night of our trip to Japan last year on October 26th.